They say all good things must come to an end, and recently that proved true as we saw Mr. McCann’s stewardship of the House Public Speaking competition conclude with the most recent edition, after 39 years of running logistics for the competition and judging all of the Heats. He is deciding to give himself a very well deserved rest, after offering at least 15 hours of his spare time to judge the Heats this year, as well as organising a very successful final on the evening of 16th December.
This year’s contest was so competitive that for several of the competitions, our adjudicator could not decide between the finalists. The adjudicator was none other than Gethin Anthony, the Game of Thrones actor and Tiffin alumnus, who kindly offered to come along to the competition and adjudicate for a record third time, having competed in the competition himself when he attended the school.
We are enormously grateful to Mr. McCann for his generosity and the tenacity he has displayed in ensuring that the competition still runs every year and that the standard is as high as it can be. He worked with the finalists to rehearse and offer advice, a service he has by this point rendered to over 1000 Tiffin students over the years. To put his commitment into context, his contracted role with the school is to coach Games two afternoons a week; during November and early December, there is no doubt that he was providing more time for free to this competition than time he was being paid for at the school. Here he can be seen below on the left, alongside a selection of winners from this year’s competition; James L-T (Raleigh), Teddy M (Livingstone), Calan C (DW), Yusuf R (Livingstone), Tom P-H (DW) and Olivia N (DW).
On the other hand, some things do stay the same. Anay T’s dominance in table tennis was firmly established when he won Year 8 Table Tennis, a year after winning the Year 7 competition. Seen below on the right of the left photo, he dispatched 5 competitors to face Mihir M in an all-Livingstone final. The same couldn’t be said, sadly, for Eesah J (CG), who couldn’t quite follow up his victory in Year 9 but instead lost out in the final of Year 10 Table Tennis to Aryan S of Scott house (seen in the right photo). Aryan was clearly eager to have his revenge, having missed out to Eesah in the final the year prior. Who knows what will happen next year…
House Public Speaking wasn’t the only public event of Autumn 2. In early December, we welcomed parents to the Main Hall for the House Drama Final, where five houses fought for the title and individual students fought to be named Best Writer or Best Actor. To adjudicate, we were delighted to welcome another alumnus, Akshay Khanna of ‘Red, White and Royal Blue’ and ‘The Doll Factory’.
As it happens, DW may not have taken the main prize but somehow Dr. Selig still won; as it turned out, George V’s (Livingstone) performance as Dr. Selig was uncanny enough to earn the Best Actor nod. Arthur P (Drake) took home the Best Writer prize for his spy thriller, which sounds completely normal until you realise that most of it revolved around cats.
And even despite TN assaulting the Main Hall (and the audience) with flour, in a scene reminiscent of an Extinction Rebellion protest (see Exhibit A below), it was ultimately that piece by Drake that took the overall prize for House Drama 2024. Rest assured, Xavier F (TN) could be seen post-competition shuffling a small hoover around the floor to ensure everything would be back to normal the next day.
Livingstone won Year 10 Basketball, meanwhile Drake, KM and CG won Year 7, 8 and 9 Badminton respectively, bringing another half term of excitement to a close. In Spring 1, we will be completing much of the rest of Basketball and Table Tennis, as well as looking forward to another huge public event; House Singing.
In drawing the Autumn Term to a close, we have not one, but TWO leaderboards to show for the students’ efforts. All of the students are automatically entered into a new competition this year, the House Shield, in which participation and performance points are logged for every single student who competes in a house activity, so that alongside the House Championship we also have a student championship. The scores by Christmas can be seen below, with Eric T (DW) currently leading by quite a stretch.
And finally, the standings in the House Championship. DW return to the top, but just look at that comparison of points for Drake compared to last year!
Mr J Edwards
Principal Head of House